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Topic: Dinner party ideas (Read 2576 times)

I will be hosting a dinner party for five people including me in the beginning of February. One guest is vegetarian, one is gluten free and a third has a serious nut allergy, so I want to work around that.

So far, I've come up with the following-

Starter- I'm drawing a blank- soup, maybe? With oatcakes?Main- Mushroom stroganoff with GF noodlesSide- Green salad with vinagretteDessert- My first thought was Russian cream or panna cotta, but that might be a little too rich on top of the stroganoff. Maybe a fruit tart?

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If wisdom’s ways you wisely seek,Five things observe with care,To whom you speak,Of whom you speak,And how, and when, and where.Caroline Lake Ingalls

soup sounds great - how about tomato soup with polenta squares or polenta dumplings (I believe corn flour is GF). for your main - are your non-vegetarians happy with having a meatless meal? and are GF noodles good? i've never had them. can you use rice instead or mashed potatoes?

dessert - panna cotta isn't overly rice and it is very pretty and yummy. you can serve it with sliced fruit on the side. i'm not sure what "russian cream" is but i'm sure it's yum

It sounded so delicious when I found it in a book, but that might be too much sour cream for one meal.

Tomato soup sounds like a good choice- I don't want to have a completely white meal!

I think the non-veggies are fine as long as it's substantial food- it will probably be cold out. I haven't tried GF noodles yet, but I didn't want to make separate batches for one person. I was planning to do a test run of the stroganoff this weekend, and I can make a small batch of them then and see if they're edible.

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If wisdom’s ways you wisely seek,Five things observe with care,To whom you speak,Of whom you speak,And how, and when, and where.Caroline Lake Ingalls

The oatcake recipes I'm familiar with are usually about 1/2 wheat flour, so that may be tricky as a starter (starting with pure oats tends to produce thick oatmeal rather than a dough).

A good tomato soup would be good. I like doing it with roasted onions and tomatoes and some garlic to start, then adding stock and simmering, then pureeing, and using just a bit of heavy cream at the end.

Stroganoff sounds good, and would also pair well with mashed potatoes or rice, so you don't have to worry about how gluten free noodles will cook up. Be careful to note that Worcestershire sauce (a common ingredient) is not vegetarian, and sour cream is not always vegetarian (low fat versions sometimes include gelatin). You'll need a good vegetable stock as the base, though.

I'd be tempted to include some dried shiitakes in the mushroom mix - start with small ones (about two inches across or so), soak in warm water, then slice. Then you can save the soaking water to use as part of the vegetable broth for the stroganoff.

The green salad would pair well with the stroganoff, and act as a balance for its richness, and I think a fruit tart would go well to finish.

Heh. Now you've made me want to try and put together a white meal! Just for a fun thing to do. I have a white garden bed....

It would be, but I have white dishes and don't want the food to blend in!*g*

I think I may scratch the oatcakes- I had a flour-free version but can't find it.

My stroganoff recipe calls for dried and fresh mushrooms both. I'm trying this batch with a mix of dried oyster and shitake, with fresh cremini. The recipe does not call for Worcestershire or stock- it's from Anna Thomas's The Vegetarian Epicure, Book Two, so I think I'm safe on that.

For a crisp - you could try an apple/berry crisp, which would work well using frozen berries.

You could use gluten free flour to thicken the fruit mixture (or cornstarch). Citrus is there for flavour - a bit of lemon juice perks up the flavour of bland fruit. So you can leave that out, and add a bit of vanilla extract instead.

For a topping, a streusel works well, but you'd need to use gluten free flour. Then it's flour, oats and brown sugar, sprinkled on top.

For dessert, you could do a flourless chocolate cake (there are tons of recipes online) with mixed berries and freshly whipped cream, that way people could pick and choose which they would like. Just make sure you dust your baking dish with cocoa powder instead of flour to avoid the gluten.

The Russian Cream recipe looked really good, but it had gelatin in it, which might bother your vegetarian guest, depending on how strict he or she is.

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